


a lady's place

by orphan_account



Series: Attack on Avengers [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, M/M, Marco Bodt is not technologically inept, Mike is Coulson fight me, Ninette and Marco are super important, Ninette has more jeanmarco feels than we do, Ninette is very important, Oops, Well he is, but he can text goddammit, historians get it wrong a lot, i've been crying for a thousand years, it's basically a direct prequel to magnets i dunno, optimistic end?????, there are a shameful number of OCs lurking around this verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-04 22:53:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1796221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The SSR doesn’t want much to do with a short teenaged girl in possession of an attitude problem. You convince them otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a lady's place

Jean Kirschtein falls off of a train a few months before VE day, and they never find his body.

Marco Bodt crashes a plane into the Arctic just a few days later and they never find him either.

You move on. One was your brother and another might as well have been but you move on.

Nobody really cares much about Ninette Kirschtein. You’re not even twenty years old when they die, you just get sent their personal effects because you were Jean’s next of kin and he was Marco’s. A sketchbook, two uniforms, a photograph of the two of them smiling. Two medals for valor, presented posthumously. Two graves in Arlington, even though neither of them has been anywhere close and if there had been bodies to bury you would’ve fought for them to be in Brooklyn but those graves were for the public, not for you.

The SSR doesn’t want much to do with a short teenaged girl in possession of an attitude problem. You convince them otherwise. The operative you challenged to a fight will never have children.

The SSR lasts for a few years, and then you form SHIELD with one Mr. Ackerman ( _supposedly, he doesn’t do much_ ) and everyone moves on over.

You put flowers on two graves in Arlington on each of their birthdays and the day in the middle of the two they died on.

One day, an Agent Mike Zacharius asks you for an interview. He’s a beginner, mostly stuck on deskwork. “I’d like to flesh out Captain America’s file.”

“You could ask plenty of people about the Captain, Agent.” You tell him, dismissively. You’re sixty years old and you’ve put that behind you.

He shakes his head. “But there are only so many people I could ask about Marco Bodt.”

You sit down with him, ask for the transcript of your conversation later.

_NK: So, what do you want to know about Marco?_

_MZ: Did you think he could grow up to be such a hero when you were kids?_

_NK: (snorts derisively) Hell no. Marco… I respected him ‘cause he was older and he was a good guy, but he was tiny, and sick all the time. My brother thought Marco could move mountains someday, but... Jean was a dreamer, y'know? Always said he was gonna change the world, leave his mark._

_MZ: Well, he certainly did that._

_NK: We're not here to talk about my brother, agent Zacharius._

Almost seventy years after the crash, they find the Valkyrie. You get a call that Marco Bodt's body was recovered. The decision to go to D.C. and stand your vigil while they thaw a corpse that you still associate with wide smiles and piano music and ice cream on a hot day is one of the hardest you've ever made. You do it for Marco, and for Jean.

A few hours after you arrive there's a frantic call that they've found a pulse. Your heart stutters in your chest.

They don't tell you about the harebrained scheme to make him think it's still the forties until it's too late. You could've told them that he's too smart for that. They don't even consult you on what to put on the radio- you later find out they picked a baseball game that Jean took him to as a birthday present.

He looks a little bit shattered when you walk into his SHIELD provided room, knees tucked into his chest with his head resting in his hands. "I should've warned them you're too smart to be tricked." You state, and his head jerks up so he's looking at you. His eyes are red-rimmed. "At ease, soldier." You say, hoping to calm the tense lines his entire body's made of. It doesn't work.

The thing is that you never knew Captain America except as an abstract. You got letters alluding to the fact that Marco was the _star-spangled man_ , jokes from Jean about how wasn't it funny that the lauded symbol of American patriotism was the son of Belgian immigrants, offhand comments from Marco about how the suit might be tacky but it was damn near bulletproof so he'd take it.

"Who're you?" He asks. His tone is mild but you can hear the barest edge of hostility. He's a stranger in a strange land and everyone is a potential enemy.

You get it, you don't have to like it. "You don't recognize me, Marco?"

His eyes skate over you as you move to sit on the bed, trace over the line of your jaw, the shape of your mouth, the shape and color of your eyes. The things you haven't lost with age. The things you had in common with your brother. "Nettie." He whispers. Nobody's called you that since you were sixteen. "Oh my god, _Ninette_ , I'm so sorry, oh my god." His voice wavers all over the place and it hits you like a bullet to the head that he's still processing a tragedy you made your peace with seventy years ago.

"Marco, it's fine." You murmur soothingly. For him it's been maybe a week. He probably remembers the exact sensation of every snowflake that hit him that day. You barely remember how Jean's laugh sounded. It's definitely not fine.

Captain America doesn't cry because he's too strong to need to. Marco Bodt doesn't because he doesn't quite know how.

The two of you skate around each other a bit afterward, you go back home and he stays with SHIELD. Once the initial shock fades, he starts texting- he adapts to necessary technology remarkably quickly -you about things the modern world has managed to surprise him with.

_inflation gives me headaches. -M_

_i'm never seeing an action movie in 3D ever again. -M_

_what the hell happened to normal bananas? i don't like this century anymore. -M_

Silly, inconsequential things, mostly. He tries to keep the mood light, pretend like he's adjusting. He's acutely aware that you're a little old to be handling his breakdowns, so it's only the easy things. Even on the day aliens invade New York, it's just, _a_ _re you okay? -M i'm fine, you? -N peachy. you ever tried shawarma? -M_

Although one day it's just, and you can hear the wobble in his voice like he's actually talking to you and not just letters on a screen, _wait, if Jean was still around we could've gotten hitched? -M nevermind. -M ignore me. -M_

He moves to D.C.

_there's a Smithsonian exhibit on us. -M reports of my exploits have been greatly exaggerated. -M_

_read a biography of myself. you were not mentioned. how classified are you? -M_

_read a biography of Jean. -M which one? -N "32258" -M did you punch a hole in the wall? -N maybe. -M i'll send you a more accurate one. -N_

_how do you think people would react if they knew Captain America is gay? -M_

There's a commotion on the news, all of SHIELD's files released, helicarriers blown up, Captain America almost drowns, spends a few days hospitalized. Two words on your phone.

_he's alive. -M_

You are, in a word, ecstatic. For yourself, for Marco, for _Jean_ , goddammit. And then you get the rest of the story and a weight settles in your stomach. Jean never wanted to be anything less than completely independent. He wanted to be free, and safe, and happy, and with Marco. Now he's none of the above.

_as long as he's alive, we can get him back. -N_   


**Author's Note:**

> I bet you thought I forgot about this !verse. Long fics are in progress, but I figured I'd post ficlets instead of leaving everybody hanging. The next one is probably either Reiner & Annie or Levi & Hanji. Stay tuned.


End file.
